


Saved by the Bird

by blue_pointer



Series: Only in Manhattan [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Ghostbusters (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Comedy, Crack, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Thor? - Freeform, post-Ghostbusters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 22:39:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8303854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_pointer/pseuds/blue_pointer
Summary: Steve tries to get a word in edgewise, but it's difficult at Ghostbusters Headquarters. Kevin gets lost picking up sandwiches. The gals turn the PKE on Steve, with interesting results. Patty does her best to make Steve feel welcome in all the chaos. Sam is not the pizza guy, Kevin.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I know nothing about quantum physics, you guys.

Once the gals had explained to him what a ghostbuster was, Steve was intrigued. “I don’t really believe in ghosts,” he admitted. “But I’ve seen a lotta things in the last five years I wouldn’t have thought were possible in 1945.” 

“A little skepticism is key to scientific discovery,” Abby told him, refilling his plate with donuts. She was watching him so carefully, Steve was starting to wonder if she was doing an experiment right now. To see just how much food he could put away. If she was, she was in for a surprise. After two dozen, though, Steve was getting a little tired of donuts. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything a little healthier, would you?” he asked.

“You  _ look _ healthy,” Erin observed, still standing a little too close to Steve for comfort.

He decided to let it go. “Like maybe some brown rice? Broccoli?” If his six-year-old self could see him now, actually ASKing for broccoli.  

“We sent Kevin out for sandwiches,” Abby told him apologetically.

Steve checked his watch. “It’s 2100 hours.”

“Remember the time he ended up in Jersey?” Holtzmann sniggered into the machinery she was wiring.

“He’s got a bad sense of direction?” Steve guessed. He wondered if it had to do with being an alien. When he had his memories, Thor could fly. Maybe it was disorienting for him to be grounded.

“Bad sense of direction, bad sense of time, bad sense of responsibility…” Patty was counting off the points on her inch-long nails.

“It’s still faster than ordering from Zhen’s and waiting for Benny to get here,” Abby explained.

Steve could have gone for some Chinese food, to be honest. But he wasn’t going to put these women out any more. They’d already been more than generous. “I feel like I’ve already taken up enough of you ladies’ time--” he began.

“Oh, it’s no bother!” Erin rushed to interrupt.

“You still haven’t told us what the problem is,” Abby pointed out kindly.

“He was looking for someone,” Holtzmann reminded them with a smirk. “And he found ‘im. Then you sent ‘im out for sandwiches. Sandwiches!” she sang the last word loudly in what Steve would have sworn was an Ethel Merman impression. Interesting choice.  

“So tell us, Cap.” Patty leaned forward on the workbench that served as their dining table. She was smiling, elated, like the little kids who asked him for his autograph. “What can the Ghostbusters do for you?”

“Conductors of the Metaphysical Examination--” Erin broke in to correct.

“--Motorcycle Excitation,” Kevin re-corrected, having walked up behind her.

“You’re back,” Steve smiled at him. He was trying to decide how suspicious and how much of an imposition it would be to ask them not to send Thor out on any more errands. He kind of wanted the guy to stay in one place until they could work out a solution to this whole memory thing.

Abby was glancing from one of Kevin’s empty hands to the other with a look of growing frustration. “Kevin, where are the sandwiches?”

“Oh, right.” Thor-who-was-called-Kevin smiled a dazzling Asgardian smile. “I ate ‘em.”

“You ate them.” Abby repeated, sounding like Steve’s mam had sounded right before he would get a whipping back in the day.

“Come on, man!” Patty stamped her foot in frustration.

Holtzmann strolled forward with her hands behind her back like a prosecuting attorney getting ready to cross-examine a witness. “What I’d like to know is did you eat them in succession, or was there perhaps a brief waiting period in between?”

“You had ONE job, Kevin!” Abby had clearly been hoping to eat more than just donuts today, too.

“Now, Abby,” Erin rushed to Kevin’s defense. “I’m sure if Kevin ate our sandwiches, he had a good reason.”

“I was hungry.” Kevin smiled.

“It’s like sending Jack and getting back magic beans, I swear!”

“Don’t mess with Abby when her blood sugar be low,” Patty advised Steve.

Steve couldn’t understand how they ever got anything done around here. Hook and Ladder 8 was more chaotic than Avengers Tower had been-- And now Steve was sad again. Damn.

“Oh, I did actually find some...metabolic recitation evidence for you while I was out,” Thor-who-was-called- Kevin told Abby in a way that showed he was trying to be helpful.

“You found evidence of paranormal activity?” Erin asked, immediately excited, as though her dog, who had previously only retrieved sticks, had suddenly shown up with a gold bar in its mouth.

“Oh, euch, no!” Kevin said, making a face. “I hated that movie. Couldn’t sleep for weeks after I saw it.”

Abby was just standing with the heel of her palm pressed to her forehead, waiting for it to be over. Holtzmann was doing the Russian Cossack dance around the table, apparently under-stimulated by the conversation.

“Too scary?” Erin asked sympathetically.

“Yeah, I kept waking up, thinking someone would be in my room with a video camera, recording me sleeping.”

“I would do that,” Erin admitted softly, in that way she had where she thought no one could hear her. Steve made a mental note to lock his door tonight.

Thor-who-was-called-Kevin seemed to feel similarly, because he stopped smiling and walked back to his desk that had a computer even Steve recognized as outdated, along with several telephones Abby had previously admitted to him had all been disconnected.

“Whatever.” Abby sighed, giving up. “Let’s just order pizza.” 

“I’ll do it!” Kevin offered, helpfully dialing one of his dead phones. Abby pulled a smartphone out of her pocket and hit a couple of buttons, doing her best to ignore him.

“Wait. I wanna see if anyone actually picks up this time,” Holtzmann grinned, walking over to the receptionist’s desk in a manner reminiscent of Groucho Marx. In a way, Steve appreciated that she kept making cultural references he could relate to. Odd as the woman was.

“ANYway, Cap.” Patty turned back to him with a smile. “You were sayin’?” Steve was glad at least ONE person hadn’t lost the thread of their conversation in the chaos.

“Well…” Steve sighed, glancing over at Thor-who-was-called-Kevin. He’d given up on his phone call and was playing a children’s game on his outdated computer. “To be honest, I’m not sure that you  _ can _ help me.”

There was a melodious whirring sound behind him and Steve turned to see Holtzmann holding some electronic device out toward him. It looked like an emergency police radio with a neon egg beater attached to it. As he watched, the egg beater began to spin. “My fellow conductors of the metaphysical, examine this!” Holtzmann said, her eyes wide with excitement in a way that made Steve nervous.

Abby, who had been acting up to now like the big sister Steve never had, looked at him in a way that made him feel like a white rat. “Oh my god!” Erin cried. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Captain America is a ghost?” Patty asked, confused.

“At best he’d be a metaspecter,” Holtzmann answered as if Patty was serious--Steve seriously hoped she wasn’t serious. “With a physical manifestation that solid...he’d have to be class V at least…”

“I am not a ghost,” Steve assured Patty, who was still looking at her fellow ghostbusters for an explanation.

“I really wasn’t sure it was possible, but--” Abby and Erin seemed to be having their own conversation independent of the other two women.

“Lepton residue?” Abby asked, coming over to look from Steve to the dial on the neon egg beater.

“Muons,” Holtzmann said. “These suckers are heavy to make the dial do this!”

“Do you remember my initial theory about apparitions in time loops and the resultant tachyons?”

Abby pursed her lips. “You know I prefer string theory, Erin.”

Steve was seriously considering grabbing Thor and just getting out of here. If he waited until these women got to the point, it might be the 22nd century.

“Y’all gotta stop with that!” Patty suddenly burst in, snatching the egg beater from Holtzmann. “You’re scarin Captain America!”

“Were you really scared?” Holtzmann looked down at Steve with what could only be described as derisive sarcasm.

“I wasn’t scared,” Steve reassured her. “But hey, if that thing can read supernatural or superhuman particles...did you ever try it on Th--I mean Kevin? Did it ever get a reading on him?”

Abby laughed. “These aren’t meant to pick up humans.”

“I get it,” Steve said. “But it just picked up somethin with me, so.”

“Wait, are you sayin’ Kevin ain’t human?” Patty asked, looking worried. Because it would explain so much.  

Erin elbowed Abby, joking at Steve’s expense, “And I just thought he had the  _ body _ of a Greek god.” Clearly neither of them had ever considered it.

“Wrong pantheon,” Steve told her.

Erin laughed like he’d just joined in the joke, but he could tell she had no idea what he was talking about. Holtzmann, bless her, had gone right over to try the egg beater on Thor. Apparently she was game for anything when it came to science experiments. He’d have to remember that.

While Erin and Abby chuckled at his lack of scientific knowledge, Steve slipped off his stool and walked over to take a look at the egg beater. The prongs had stopped spinning as fast, but it was still glowing and the dial was registering something. Patty was right behind him. “Well lookit that. Kevin’s a ghost, too!” She squinted down at the meter reading. “But like a real low-key ghost.”

“That can’t be right.” Abby bustled over to look, too.

“He really is a Greek god?” Erin wandered over, too, hopeful.

“He’s really tall,” Holtzmann observed. “And blond. Wouldn’t he be more of a Viking god? I’m thinking of something Scandinavian.”

“Warmer,” Steve told her.

“I don’t know, Erin, even Percy Jackson registers higher than this,” Patty told her, still looking at the meter, doubtful.

“But you know he’s not real, right?” Abby was looking at Patty like she was pretty sure of the answer, but she just had to check.

“Yes, Abby,” Patty snapped. “Thank you for your confidence.”

“Well, I just wanted to make sure,” Abby said in that mom tone she tended to use, defensive. “We have moved into new territory here today with Captain America showing up at our front door.”

“Please,” Steve said for the fifth time. “Call me Steve.”

Up to now, Thor-who-was-called-Kevin had been concentrating on his computer game and paying none of them any mind, glowing egg beater or not. “Percy Jackson is actually based on the mythological hero Perseus. He was the son of Poseidon, god of the sea.”

Abby and Patty looked at each other like Kevin had just started to do differential equations. “Who’s Percy Jackson?” Steve was so glad Erin asked before he felt compelled to.

“He’s kind of like Harry Potter, but instead of having magic, he’s half-Greek god.” Hearing the familiar voice, Steve immediately stood and turned to find Sam in the doorway. “We didn’t watch that one yet, ‘cause it’s kind of a kids movie. Plus Harry Potter freaked you out.”

“It got so dark at the end!” Steve would be defending himself about this for decades; he could feel it.

“Today is just full of big old robots,” Holtzmann observed, pointing the egg beater in Sam’s direction now. It turned off completely. “Awww. Wah-wah.”

“Oh my God, it’s Falcon!” Everyone in the room winced at the decibel power of Patty’s enthusiasm.

Sam just gave her the cool head-nod. “Hey.” Steve had come to know that meant he found the nodded-at person attractive.

Patty’s shriek must have gotten Thor-who-was-called-Kevin’s attention, because he suddenly glanced back at all of them. “Pizza guy’s here.” And he pointed at Sam.

“Very funny, Pikachu,” Sam told him. And then he looked over at Steve. “Hey, where’d you find Pikachu? Was he kidnapped by Team Rocket all this time?”

“Okay, we are serious scientists-!” Erin began, defensive. Unfortunately for her, Holtzmann sprinted over to lean against Erin’s back, holding something that looked vaguely like a blow dryer as if it were a gun.

“Prepare for trouble!” she bellowed. That got Sam. His face split into that irresistible gap-toothed smile, and he doubled over with laughter.

“These are all media references,” Steve realized. “Aren’t they?” Sometimes it seemed no matter how hard he tried, he’d never catch up to the 21st century. 


End file.
